Go to Orange Theory—NOW!
I used to believe group workout classes were dull and boring. Like all of my workout sessions at home, I would yearn to exit the door and stop the workout after thirty minutes.
But my perspective for group fitness classes changed when I was referred to Orange Theory.
Acquiring twelve “Splat Points,” burning over six-hundred calories, running miles on treadmills, rowing thousands of meters on water rowers, working harder than ever—all in sixty minutes. Orange Theory is the quintessential group fitness class revolved around heart-rate interval training.
Every Sunday, I set foot in an Orange-Theory studio five minutes prior to my scheduled class. I check in with the front desk and secure my place in class. I grab a treadmill card. I strap my heart rate monitor around my chest and I eagerly anticipate the workout ahead of me: is it going to be strength day? Arm day? Leg day? Cardio day? A minute flies by; the trainer announces to the twenty men and women standing beside me, “today is paranormal leg day…you will not be able to go to the bathroom tomorrow.” Lovely, I uttered. Before I could brace my mind and body for the next sixty-minute work out session, we were all welcomed into the class. As I walk into the Orange-Theory workout area and onto my treadmill, the trainer gives each participant a high-five. I begin to acclimate to the setting.
As I am getting on my treadmill, increasing my speed to four miles-per-hour, and beginning my sixty-minute workout, I pursue the studio. I spot the fluorescent, circular orange lights dangled from the ceiling shining directly on me. I feel the fans whirling at the highest speed. I hear the blasting modern-pop music playing on the speaker. I notice the flat-screen displaying everyone’s heart-rate (my heart-rate was low). I see the grey wall, filled with motivational quotes: “Nothing feels better than a finished workout”, “goals are dreams with deadlines,” “Work hard and be proud”—just to name a few. I feel the athleticism pumping throughout each vein in my body. I am electrified to conquer “paranormal leg day.”
My desire was to not only conquer paranormal leg day, but also reach twelve “Splat points.” My desire was to burn over six-hundred calories. I would work harder than ever to attain my goal in a mere sixty minutes.
The trainer begins to walk half of the class through the exercises on the floor and tells the other half on the treadmills to begin to run at a “push pace”—for me, that meant seven miles per hour—for 25 minutes. I thought, 25 minutes of push?! What?! How would I survive? But before I made unnecessary complaints, I tilted my head back to read the quotes directly in front of my eyes. I needed to find a quote that would be etched into my brain for the next sixty-minutes—I chose “Think about why you started.”
During the course of the sixty minutes, I ran two miles on the treadmill for twenty-five minutes. I rowed a distance of two-thousand-five-hundred meters. I completed leg exercises—frog jumps, eighty squats, lunge hops—to the point where every attempt to keep my legs straight throbbed. Every muscle in my body kept on aching. My body wanted to give up. I could not complete such a strenuous workout if I were doing a replication of the workout at my house. By constantly repeating the quote, “Think about why you started” in my head, I channeled and unleashed any remaining motivation lying dormant inside of me.
In addition to the wall of quotes and encouragement, I was fortunate enough to be stimulated by a trainer, too. In between every transition from the treadmill to the rower, and from the rower to the floor, the trainer told everyone to give the person standing next to them a high five. I gave a stranger to my right a high-five—that simple high-five thrusted me back into my goal and my purpose of working out at Orange Theory. If the repetition of my quote inside my head wasn’t enough, the trainer always provided words of encouragement: “Way to go, Victor,” “Keep pushing,” and the highlight of the workout “Do it for the biscuit, but don’t eat the biscuit.” The sixty-minutes I would so earnestly dread for would be over in a blink of an eye.
Every occasion I set my foot out the door of the Orange Theory studio, I am confronted with the reality that Orange Theory is not just defined by a hard workout class, activating every muscle group in my body. Rather, through the course of every sixty-minutes, I push myself harder than I believe possible. Through the course of every sixty-minutes, I discover an unfeigned appreciation for group workout classes. Through the course of every sixty-minutes at Orange Theory, I learn to motivate myself to conquer the things I would normally be petrified of conquering.
Orange Theory, quite literally, changes my perspective on group workouts and fitness.
